


A Home by the Sea

by ohelrond



Series: To Begin Anew [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: ALIVE!THOMAS IS CANON, BE THIS HASHTAG ICONIC, DEAD!THOMAS IS NOW THE AU, FUCK ME THE FUCK UP BITCH YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS, FUCK!! ME!! UP!!, GIRL YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS, I REPEAT NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, M/M, im so fUCKED UP!!!!!!!!!!! YAAAS BITCH, your otp could never
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 23:55:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10524594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohelrond/pseuds/ohelrond
Summary: Thomas and James set up a home by the Florida coast and live happily ever after. Part of my post-S4 series, To Begin Anew.





	

“Wh… how are you..? Wh-”

“We’re leaving.”

There was a small town, a fishing down, by the coast that Silver had already made arrangements for them near. A stone house awaited them that had land suitable for a few crops, and it overlooked the sea, bushes and grasses long enough to afford the house some privacy. They were to present themselves as brothers, nobodies, the sons of nobodies. Silver promised them all the money they would need, too, should the savings belonging to Captain Flint ever run low. James expected they would not, however. Ten years of piracy had not left him bereft.

It took a few days to travel to the house by horse and cart and Silver’s men came with them. They didn’t have time to spend any moments alone and after the emotion of their reunion it was easier to avoid each other for the time being, and besides, it was tiring work travelling in the heat. At night, though, when they slept, their hands touched.

It did not take long to unload the cart with the few belongings Thomas had brought from the house. Books, clothes, a spyglass, a few farming tools. As they had passed the town they had purchased two mattresses and blankets and a table and few chairs. James was glad Silver had sent men trustworthy enough to hand over the entirety of his fortune, modest though it was. Enough for this house and its contents, at least. Enough to support them for a while. _Them_. The _two_ of them. Silver’s men helped them to unload and then left them to stay in the town before making their way home in the morning. And then they were alone.

James slowly walked around the kitchen of the house and ran his hand over the smooth wood of the table they had moved there. The kitchen had a sink and a stove and the fireplace was somewhat pretty. This was a prettier house than the home he had shared with Miranda. His jaw clenched. Behind him, James heard Thomas take a seat, the legs dragging slightly on the stone floor. He turned slowly and saw Thomas looking at him. Thomas was smiling. He hadn’t stopped smiling.

“Am I dreaming?” he asked, his voice soft. He held out his hand to call James over to him and James could not help but heed the call.

“No,” came the shaking response. James’ lip trembled as Thomas took his hand and raised it to his lips. “Am I?”

“Does this feel like a dream?”

James closed his eyes when Thomas kissed his palm and he shook his head. “No, it doesn’t.”

Thomas was so brave compared to him now. James was hesitant in everything, worried that he might touch Thomas and find him not real, or say something to make him hate him. Thomas seemed to have no fears. He touched James without hesitation, talked to him, questioned him. It was like London all those years ago, and again he found himself utterly in awe.

Thomas pulled him closer until James was standing between his legs and his forehead rested against James’ stomach. His hands had already found their way to James’ waist and it ignited a fire within him, a slow burning flame and it frightened him.

He felt a kiss pressed to his stomach through his shirt and it made him shiver. “Thomas,” he murmured. He was _here_. Thomas was here and he was real and he was warm and he was love. “Please.”

Sliding his hands to stroke up and down James’ back, Thomas looked up. He closed his eyes as a hand made its way into his hair, his soft beard. “What do you need?” he murmured and he opened his eyes to look up at him. James looked so different now. Scars, lines, burns. Under them all, James was still there, though. He was still there.

“We need to talk.”

Thomas stroked the rough linen shirt that covered his back. “I don’t want to talk. Not for now.”

“But-”

Breath rushed from his lungs as Thomas rose from the chair and pulled him into a tight embrace. When they had first laid eyes on each other again that was all that they could do at first, the heat of the sun beating down on them and the wind whipping at their clothes, and since then Thomas had pulled him into his arms on the rare moments their companions were not looking. It was all James could do to keep himself standing. Now it was not any different.

“I lost myself when I lost you,” James whispered into his hair. His hands found their way to his waist and he surrendered himself to the warmth of the other man’s arms and his eyes were hot and stinging. When he felt the lips of the other against his neck he tilted his head.

Thomas said nothing in reply but kissed him instead, lips touching dirty skin and coarse hair gently and catching the taste of salt on them. Hands gripped his waist a little tighter before he pulled away.

There was a well in the grounds of the house that they could use to drink and cook and bathe from and Thomas filled a large bucket with the cool and fresh water to take into the house. Years of manual labour had made his body strong and he carried it with ease back inside as the sun began to set and rested it beside where James was now sitting.

In comfortable silence, Thomas knelt in front of him and pulled a clean rag from his pocket to dip into the water. Gentle hands, rough now from years of work, pulled at the dark shirt James wore and untucked it from his belts and trousers as he sat. James watched him warily for a moment before complying and pulling it free from his body. He felt bare now. So many new scars had appeared, so many new marks.

Thomas roamed his eyes over James’ naked torso in search of wounds that would need careful attention but he found none that were fresh. There were, however, a great many scars. His chest was thicker than it once was, though, and shoulders broader, arms stronger. Something in Thomas stirred beneath his belly. He pulled out the rag and wrung it out before taking James’ arm and slowly running circles with it on his skin. Layer by layer, dirt came away and clean skin emerged. Flecks of mud and blood were washed away, revealing James McGraw anew.

The most satisfying was cleansing his head and neck of the mud and blood, wiping away all traces of that past life and leaving dotted and clean skin in its place. Thomas did not like the sight of the scars on James’ back, though. The horrors he must have suffered. One day he would ask about them. Actually, one day he would ask about it all. About Miranda, about Nassau, about Flint. The time for those questions was not now, though.

Thomas noticed the way James tensed as he stroked his chest with the wet cloth. How he swallowed when a droplet of water slid down his stomach and onto the band of his belt. Thomas watched the water slide over his skin and his lips parted. Ten years of sadness and despair melted away for a brief moment leaving only love, deep and uncompromising love and he stood again, pulling James back into his arms and he made no hesitation before kissing the soft spot where his ear met his neck. James clutched his shoulders.

“We have so much to discuss,” James said shakily, but Thomas could feel what he wanted. When his hands had glided over his chest, cleaned his back, he had felt the heat radiating from the other man’s body and he knew he needed this as much as he did.

“Yes, we do,” Thomas whispered against his ear. “And we have all the time in the world now.”

The shorter man knotted his hands in the front of Thomas’ shirt and he looked up at him with heavily lidded eyes. “Shouldn’t we talk first?”

“You have made me half undone already.”

“I have been half undone since I saw you again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Black Sails has fucked me up in the best of ways. Honestly thank you to everyone in the Black Sails fandom that I've ever interacted with, who has ever left a comment, a kudos, a review, anything. And thank you to Toby and Rupert, not that they'll ever see this, but they the real OGs. @ Black Sails, God bless and goodbye.


End file.
